


What He Finds For Himself

by iberiandoctor (jehane)



Category: Cats - Andrew Lloyd Webber, Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats - T. S. Eliot
Genre: Cats, Halloween, Invented words, M/M, ToT: Chocolate Box, Whimsy, courting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-28
Updated: 2016-10-28
Packaged: 2018-08-27 11:51:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8400664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jehane/pseuds/iberiandoctor
Summary: He'll never be satisfied. (Until he is.)





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Esteliel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Esteliel/gifts).



> Beta by the magical Mlle. m! <3
> 
>   _The Rum Tum Tugger is a curious beast:_  
>  _His disobliging ways are a matter of habit._  
>  _If you offer him fish then he always wants a feast;_  
>  _When there isn't any fish then he won't eat rabbit._  
>  _If you offer him cream then he sniffs and sneers,_  
>  _For he only likes what he finds for himself!_

Cats, as you know, are mostly amorous by nature. Some are lusty; some are playful; some are deeply romantic, but by and large they are made for love — prowling and courting, siring and queening, from puberty well into the winters of their lives. 

All save Mr. Mistoffelees, of course. The Grand Supreme Magician Cat had very little time for love. 

A bicolour Felix cat, sleek and intellectual, he called himself Quaxo to the mundanes. He was a master of the dark arts, the treasures that he prized being of the mind and not of the body. He only had eyes for his surprising illusions; his cool heart only beat faster when performing conjurations; his blood ran hot solely over the study of eccentric and eclectic confusions. He once magicked kittens out of a hat rather than had them begotten in the ordinary way.

Young tabbies and toms would circle and yowl, sidle and approach, drawn to his quiet elegance, and he would smile patiently and disengage, always disengage. 

For the stray brazen feline who'd come close, rubbing eagerly up against his dark, smooth fur, he would frown, and turn about, and _presto!_ That poor, misguided cat would find him- or herself magicked out of the Junkyard onto someone's rooftop or someone else's lawn.

You'd think this sort of behaviour would be enough to dissuade the average libidinous feline out to sow their wild oats, and you'd be right. Cats might be passionate but they're easily distracted, and for every Cold Conjuring Cat who turned them down, there would be ten, no, twenty, others willing to take a tumble in the alley or the grass with a friend or a stranger and who'd bed down together afterwards, before making their own separate ways in the morning. 

Of course, the Rum Tum Tugger was no average cat. Not for nothing was he known as the Original Curious Cat, and indeed he was disobliging and contrary, artful and knowing, eternally looking past that which was set before him for the next feast and the next foolishness and tomfoolery which might be around the corner. He would, famously, never be satisfied with that which was offered him — after all, it was said he only liked that which he found for himself.

What the Rum Tum Tugger liked best was a challenge. After all, he didn't care to cuddle, particularly if someone wanted to cuddle him. But if someone pushed him away — ah, _then_ …

  
  
  


… "What're you doing, M.?" the Rum Tum Tugger asked one night, materialising in Mr Mistoffelees' workroom as if he'd been magicked there by an art more prestidigitatious than that of slinking noiselessly across the domed observatory roof on padded paws. (You just know the Rum Tum Tugger would keep his paws meticulously velveted for all manner of noiseless slinking needs.)

"Go away, Tugger," Mistoffelees said. "I'm rather occupied right now." 

He was staring through an ocular at a glass ball full of swirling colours, examining it for flaws. On his workbench were various flasks containing all kinds of magical fluids and a mysterious device holding a cork and a spoon and a bit of fish-paste. 

The Rum Tum Tugger prowled sinuously around the bench and wriggled his neck and body sideways and under and flush along with the table, so he could put his eye against the glass ball and stare right through it up into the Magical Mr. Mistoffelees' one green eye. 

"No, really, what does this contraption do?"

The Original Conjuring Cat sighed gustily and removed the ocular from his eye. "It's a dream sphere, you difficult creature. It helps me with all the legerdemain and tricksy sleight-of-hand that I require, when I travel through the dreams of big cats and little ones as they sleep in the arms of Morpheus."

"Well, of all the things," Tugger said, admiringly. He leaned away from the ball and gazed up into Mistoffelees' face. His eyes were blue and unblinking. "You going to walk through my dreams next, maybe?" 

Mistoffelees thought for an instant about sapphires, about the sky filled with stars, about the fathomless deep of the sea he saw in his dreams. 

Firmly, he put such considerations aside. He was clever and cunning, he had the monopoly on illusion and artifice, he treasured his pristine, solitary life, and as much as he treasured that his heart and his body were all his own. 

"I'll walk through the dreams of any cat who can help me learn more of my magical arts, or of any cat who needs my help. Do you perchance fall into either category?"

"Do I fall into either category? Do I?" cried the Rum Tum Tugger. He reached up and snatched the sphere from Mistoffelees' paw, and leaped upright with a jaunty flourish.

"Hand it over," Mistoffelees cried in his turn, his cool blood rousing hotly in a manner most unlike him. He tried to snatch the sphere back, but the Rum Tum Tugger laughed and stretched to his full height and held it easily out of reach.

With an effort, the Grand Master Magician Cat took a step back. It wouldn't do to get into a fight with the Rum Tum Tugger, who was bigger and stronger and whose striking golden head reared inches above his own; besides, they might break the dream sphere and he would really be in a pickle then.

His heart was pounding under his thick fur; his ears had flattened back against his skull. He tried to fight down the rising anger that was currently surging through every part of him, because he couldn't do any magic until he'd regained his composure.

"Hand it back, you might break it," he made himself say, coldly. "And then I will be very cross with you, Mr. Curious Contrary Cat, because it took a very long time to make. You know what they say about what happens to curious cats, don't you?"

"Nonsense — curiosity's good for many things, and it's never killed this Jellicle." The Rum Tum Tugger looked up at the sphere, and when he looked down his blue eyes were bright with a light that Mistoffelees knew he could decipher if he was just given enough time.

"Anyway: you said you'd use this to walk in my dreams, and, oh, that sounds like such fun!"

"It's not fun!" Mistoffelees cried, and then instantly regretted it, because the vanishing spell he was calmly formulating in his head vanished again in a puff of infuriation. "Oh, for Deuteronomy's sake! I told you — I’ll only use the sphere if I believed a cat had something to teach me, or if he needs my help, and not otherwise." 

The Rum Tum Tugger considered this, and then smirked as he leaned in. His whiskers trembled with excitement.

"Do I think _I_ could teach you a thing or two? My dear M. Mistoffelees, there may never have been a cat so clever as you, but the Rum Tum Tugger knows many, many more things about making a muddle — of your magical schemes, and of the socks in your drawers, and of all the dreams that live in your heart."

Those blue eyes flashed again, familiarly.

"And as for needing your help ... I might just well and truly need help from _someone_. You see, I get what I want and get it when I want it, but then when I get it I find I always want something else. Late at night, I find myself restless and on the wrong side of every door, and when I get into some tom's or tabby's drawers I find I cannot wait to get out again.”

The Rum Tum Tugger hung his handsome head, and for a moment Mistoffelees was almost moved to sympathy. 

It was for one moment only. The Grand Master Magician Cat finally recognised the flash he'd seen in the other cat's eyes, and it had been the thrill of the chase.

He said, coldly, "Sorry, I really can’t help you with any of that. You'll always be the Rum Tum Tugger, the Confoundingly Contrary Curious Cat, you’ll do what you do do, and there's no doing anything about it."

"Oh. Well, I never." The Rum Tum Tugger looked more crestfallen than anyone had ever seen him. He looked sadly at the dream sphere in his paw, and then he held it out like a peace offering to Mistoffelees.

His paw was indeed velvety to the touch; up close, the wild orange fur looked tantalisingly soft.

The Grand Master Magician Cat tucked the ball back into a hidden drawer. He had never rubbed himself up against another's fur, had never wanted to in his long life, and he wasn't going to start now, not even for the Rum Tum Tugger, who seemed to be infecting him with his blasted curiosity.

"That'll do," he said curtly to the Rum Tum Tugger. "Go be curious somewhere else, because I have work to do, and you're getting in my way."

"Oh no, I won't!” exclaimed the Rum Tum Tugger. “I'll just put myself over there, you’ll see I'll be quiet as a mouse! You won't even know I'm here!"

Mistoffelees had already begun to turn his back on Tugger, picking up the flask containing the Shimbleshanks’ truth incantation. Now he turned around to glare at the Persistently Curious Cat. 

"I seriously doubt it. And besides, on this night I do intend to walk in the darkness and talk to the ghosts and ghouls about their travels in the land of the humans. It's a dangerous path, and one which might be dire for any other cat."

The Rum Tum Tugger lounged against the nearby wall and drawled, "Ooh, danger! I like danger. And, really, what could be more dangerous to ghosts and ghoulies and scaremungeromuffins than the Magical Mr. Mistoffelees?" 

Mr. Mistoffelees suppressed another sigh, and started to make ready his vanishing spell once more. "I warned you. I do believe curiosity did in fact get the better of the Original Curious Cat." 

"But what a way to go, am I right? Whoo!" The Rum Tum Tugger lifted his arms in triumph and cocked his hips, threw back his head and let out a holler, and the Grand Master Magician Cat had to swallow very hard. It seemed as if other emotions disrupted the magickal flow as well, not just anger... It was all very confusing, and it was entirely the fault of the meddlesome, muddlesome Rum Tum Tugger.

Tugger paused mid-whoop to note that Mistoffelees had no comeback to make to this charming salvo. If you'd imagined the Rum Tum Tugger would be quick on the uptake, you'd likely be right about that.

In a flash, Tugger turned about and leaped up and curled himself across Mistoffelees's workbench. He propped his chin lazily upon one preening, knowing fist.

"And, anyway, even if curiosity did kill the Curious Cat … they say _satisfaction_ would have brought him back."

His tail swished in artful invitation, and Mr. Mistoffelees swallowed again. There was clearly nothing to be done about the Rum Tum Tugger, except for the one thing — to make him an offer he would then, by his nature, refuse.

As luck would have it, the Rum Tum Tugger’s disobliging ways were a matter of habit. Just when you might think he’d react by sniffing and sneering like he usually did … he _didn’t_.

**Author's Note:**

> A tiny Rum Tum Tugger/Mr. Mistoffelees treat for esteliel. I'm also interested in _how cats flirt and court? How does the flamboyant Rum Tum Tugger fall in love or behave in a relationship? Is Mr. Mistoffelees pleased from the start by all the attention or worship, or did he have to be won over?_ , and wanted to make some! 
> 
> Title and summary echo the poem, as well as the other musical playing down the street from the Broadway revival ;)


End file.
